


Blood Ties

by Saeto15



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saeto15/pseuds/Saeto15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat finds himself having a conversation with Gamzee’s ancestor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Ties

**Author's Note:**

> This is complete self-indulgent drivel, and highly influenced by the Serendipity Gospels because I fucking love that fic.

He guides you into a sparse, darkened block and sits you down around a low table, this great hulking troll, his meaty fingers resting heavily on your shoulder. You lower yourself to the ground on the cushion provided, and watch the adult creakily follow suit. He’s old, ridiculously old; you didn’t know trolls could get so ancient. His face is a painted death mask, his hair wild and tangled around two giant, twisting horns. He’s what Gamzee will grow into, if he manages to live so long.

Sitting on the table is a largish lump covered in silk, a few candles surrounding it. As you watch, the adult troll lights them one by one, oversized hands moving almost daintily. Task completed, he leans back and uses the match to light a cigar, breathing the scented smoke deeply and exhaling it in a cloud that engulfs you. You choke back a cough and keep yourself as still as possible, a rabbit in the shadow of the hawk.

You’d be even more terrified right now if you hadn’t accepted your fate days ago. You should have known you wouldn’t be able to pass unnoticed for long. Strangely enough it hadn’t been your blood that betrayed you; instead, your sign caught the attention of one of your teachers, and that had been that. You’d found yourself in chains, hastily shuffled from one ship to another until reaching your final destination and this highblooded troll who watches you from half-lidded eyes, as if he knows something crucial about you that you never even suspected.

“What do you know about ancestors?” the troll asks, finally, exhaling another cloud. You’re breathing it in; you know it must be some kind of drug because your head is already buzzing. His voice is a deep-throated rumble that makes your teeth ache, the sub-vocalizations barely audible, that much more threatening. Your shoulders hunch instinctively as you avert your gaze from his hands. You try not to think about how easily he could snap your neck with just two of those fingers.

You attempt to speak, but your throat is locked up in protest. You cough, raising your manacled hands to wipe your lips before trying again. “Ancestors are bullshit,” you say mechanically, because that’s what you’ve always believed. But this troll wouldn’t be asking if that were the case, so you continue. “Even if they aren’t, there’s no way I would have one.” You’d like to congratulate yourself on how well-restrained your language is, but the plain fact of the matter is you’re too scared to be very eloquent right now.

The highblood only snorts at your response, a hideous sound somewhere between a growl and a honk. “Let me shine the light of wicked understanding,” he says, voice thick with sarcasm, and reaches down to the table, pulling away cloth and revealing a troll’s skull: bleached white, fangs dull and horns short, rounded, and still sharply orange. It once belonged to a troll larger than you are now, but the resemblance is unmistakable. The highblood gently picks the skull up and holds it up to you, forcing you to look it in the darkened, empty sockets. You recoil in disgust.

“Why the fuck would you keep that?” you demand, leaning as far away from it as you can. The highblood laughs at your reaction and cradles the skull in the crook of his arm, gazing down at it with feigned affection.

“It’s a good motherfucking reminder,” he replies, taking one last drag from the cigar before putting it out in a candle. “My best motherfucking reminder.” He holds the skull up to his own face, and you can see a flicker of- something- pass over him. You don’t want to know. You’d jam your fingers in your ears and start screeing at the top of your lungs if it meant you’d never have to find out what, exactly, had happened between motherfucking Past You and this giant beast of a troll.

If only you had the spine to do it.

“This troll was born without a caste, without a lusus, without a motherfucking sign,” he continues, rumbling and thoughtful. “Blood a miracle red, horns a fucking joke. Worst troll to ever drag its carcass from the brooding caverns in one piece,” he muses, running an oversized finger along the nubby ridge of one horn. “Went around telling trolls not to kill, that we were all equal.” He looks at you then, gaze scouring you, a chill settling around your bloodpusher. You swallow, hard, and clench your fingers to keep them from shaking.

“So he told trolls not be assholes to each other?” you find yourself saying, your mouth apparently running on autopilot. Your sponge is, frankly, horrified, but wisely decides to stay out of it. “Wow, I see your point, what a fucking loser. He definitely deserved to be strung up on the jut and tortured to death for that one.”

The highblood arches an eyebrow at you, lips quirking in a wicked grin to show his huge fangs. “Never told you how he died, little motherfucker.”

You freeze, mouth working as you search for the words you need. You fail. You’d like to say that it was the obvious method of execution for a traitor to the empire, but that’s not really true, is it? Public culling is common enough, but it usually involves hanging. But for some reason you can’t get the image out of your mind of an older-looking You, hands bound in shackles much like the ones you’re wearing now, eyes an angry red and shouting his rage into the night as the trolls around him only watch in amusement. You feel a pang of hatred, but it’s difficult to say if you really own it or not.

“You see,” he goes on when you fail to answer. “A good motherfucking reminder.” He finally sets the skull back down, touching the horns one last time before covering it back up. “Blood remembers. Descendants follow, finish the work that ancestors begin. Blood motherfucking outs.”

You don’t know how true that is, but you can’t exactly argue. You’d like to say that you’re not exactly a rebel, and you’re definitely not a leader. You left those delusions behind a long time ago. “Fucking Past Me,” you mumble to yourself. “I always knew I was out to get me.”

The highblood laughs, and laughs, and laughs. It echoes through the room, amplified, until it’s reverberating through your pan and you eventually find yourself laughing along, because you’ve been fucked from the very start, haven’t you? And fuck if that’s not the best motherfucking joke of them all.


End file.
